Live music in SF/Oakland, and maybe elsewhere...
Many links went dead when Megaupload was shut down, so if you want to download anything again, please send an email to requests@atmyheels.com and I'll put it back up.
There's a mailing list too, send email to incubation-join@atmyheels.com to join...you can request things there too.

2011-08-24

What happened?

WARNING: no music to be found in this post.

Astute followers of this blog will have noted I have seemingly not been very active as of late. This is for a combination of reasons, but I will be remedying that shortly. One thing I *have* been doing is recording shows, but as some of you fellow recordists know, it's pretty time-intensive to go back and edit/blend/master/tracksplit/ID shows, and I have a somewhat-bad habit of doing this for *every* band I record.

And like many people I have a full-time job *and* a family (a wife and three kids!) to look after...well, often they look after me, but you catch my drift...whoops, speaking of which...

[a few minutes later, after putting the youngest to bed, and running a couple of assorted errands...]

Where was I? Ah yes...

Another reason is I've been mulling whether to explicitly seek consent before posting a band's shows, rather than the "don't ask, don't tell" approach I've so far employed. I think what I will do here on in is put up the shows and link these to a group's Facebook/whatever site, and see where the chips fall.

For those of you unfamiliar with the recordist ethos, it involves first and foremost to forswear ever directly profiting or leveraging said material for material gain, including hosting banner ads. Even with this in mind, I will honor the moral right of the artists I feature to have any performance which does not suit them removed from public view, whether due to the perceived quality of the performance or for any other reason.

An additional concern is airing unreleased songs without first being granted permission. In fact, that's been majorly factoring into why I haven't been posting as of late. I'm not sure how to approach this except by waiting until the tunes in question have been released...or by seeing if the particular composition has appeared on YouTube or elsewhere. If anybody has any other ideas or approaches...please comment.

I try to be thoughtful and considerate in everything that I do, but realize there is no pleasing everyone always. I'm sure I owe some of you some heartfelt apologies.

And finally, here is my guest list spiel/rant...I've thought about this quite a bit and decided that I prefer paying my own way into shows. This is more to have a policy ahead of time to save me future grief than due to any incidents in the past.

Here are my reasons:

(1) I am quite well-compensated in my day job. Quite a few other people are not, and are struggling to make ends meet and look forward to a fun night out to see their friends play. They should get the guest list slots, not me.

(2) See "recordist ethos" above. Being invited to attend freely amounts to material gain, which I am duty-bound to decline. It also hamper's one objectivity, not that this sort of enterprise isn't anything but subjective, anyway.

(3) There is nothing worse than going up to the door and saying that "so-and-so put me on the guest list" and then discovering to one's chagrin that there's no record of so-and-so doing so. I'd rather not have to rely on the generosity of others to get in, especially for a sold-out performance.

(4) This is not some pathetic reverse-psychology bid to get freebies. I actually *want* to benefit performers and venues bypaying my own way in. As well as buying the merch on offer. Especially considering that I am capturing sound waves for later use.

A corollary to these arguments is being invited by member of a previously unknown-to-me group to see their band play, whether out a genuine gratitude for helping to give exposure to artists or to get exposure themselves. This puts me in an awkward, no-win situation which is best avoided. Performers should follow their own muse, and so should their fans.

I'm inspired by, back in the mid-90s, how Nick Cave responded to MTV upon being informed that he was nominated for best male singer for their annual music awards. Read his reply, here: http://www.nick-cave.com/mtv/mtv.shtml
We all should strive to achieve and emulate his level of grace and class.

1 comment:

Agree entirely (but happy to be past the 'putting kids to bed' stage!). I prefer to pay for gigs too as I want to support the venues as well as the artists. We need to reward their good behavior in putting on bands for us to enjoy.

Bit pissed off today as I got another takedown notice, but will still plug local and upcoming acts where I can and put a link on their Facebook page. Until they get too big to need us!

About AMH

If it's on here, it deserves to be heard by more than just myself!

All audio files on here are (or will be) SELF-HOSTED. There is nothing to hide. Videos are served by YouTube.

I do not OWN anything posted here, all rights for any audio or visual media are hereby conferred to the artist and/or their appointed representatives. As an artist/rep, if you see anything on here that you don't want made public, please contact me at the@atmyheels.com and it will be removed forthwith. Be sure to grab a copy first!